YouTube and William Morris To Team for Premium Content - Ministry and Business Marketing & Media Blog

Word is swirling online that YouTube and major talent agency William Morris will team up to place premium content on the world's largest video portal. This serves the dual purpose of meeting YouTube's need for content they believe they can fully monetize and the needs of William Morris clients to have yet another platform to market themselves, perhaps after they've been rejected by major film and television studios.

This brings a couple questions to mind concerning both the William Morris clients and existing YouTube partners.

What will appearing on YouTube do for top-shelf WM talents? It used to be that top film stars refused to appear on television becuase the small screen was perceived to be for small-timers.

Clearly, for those closer to the bottom of the food chain YouTube could represent a killer opportunity to build a fan base. But for those already doing well, how many will be willing to appear on YouTube and how will doing so impact their brands? Brad Pitt and friends showing up for a Jimmy Kimmel bit is one thing. Showing up on YouTube in a low-level star's video is another.

On the flip side, what impact will the appearance of established stars have on the traffic of YouTube partners such as Smosh, Fred, Dave Days and others? Perhaps new Hollywood talent will bring new viewers to YouTube? Then again, if the decreased audiences of top-tier TV shows in a sea of 300 channels is at all instructive, then existing YouTube partners should seriously consider branching out.

Also consider the impact of YouTube's overall efforts to make their site more user-friendly and keep folks on their portal longer.

Search bars, menus of related content from other producers and other functionality is great for fans, but most assuredly dilutes the brands of individual YouTube producers. What then will a flood of not just prosumer but studio quality content do to existing YouTubers?